Editing Start Menu

Drybonz said:

What other reason would you have to go to this location? Why would they add a link to this folder in the start menu? It only contains start menu shortcuts and nothing else.

To be clear, I'm not trying to delete tiles... I'm trying to tidy up that "all apps" portion of the start menu, which I do use, but it has too many folders and other items.

Ah! OK, now I'm seeing . . . I'm going to go in and try uninstalling "Sports" and see what happens. That's one I will never use and if things go wonky, I can always reinstall Windows 10. After all, testing is what it's all about. :)

Well, I don't think you can do much with the metro apps.

Specifically, what I am wanting to do... let's say I install a desktop app and it creates shortcuts in the start menu... often they create shortcuts to documentation, websites... spam basically. I may want to delete these shortcuts to clean up the start menu. Another example... maybe I install a bunch of games and there are shortcuts all over the start menu (again, I'm talking about the "all apps" part of the start menu)... and I want to cut and paste all these shortcuts into one folder that I make called "games".

In every previous version of Windows I could do this by opening this folder and simply deleting, cutting, pasting, making new folders. In Windows 10 I can make these changes, but they don't actually happen in the start menu (all apps).

Wynona said:

Ah! OK, now I'm seeing . . . I'm going to go in and try uninstalling "Sports" and see what happens. That's one I will never use and if things go wonky, I can always reinstall Windows 10. After all, testing is what it's all about. :)

I uninstalled "Sports" in the "All Apps" list. To my knowledge, Sports is a folder that can (and might already) hold stuff pertaining to sports.

I then rebooted and checked "All Apps" and the "Sports" folder is well and truly gone! Is that what you wanted to see?

What other reason would you have to go to this location? Why would they add a link to this folder in the start menu? It only contains start menu shortcuts and nothing else.

I have always used those shortcuts to pin apps to my Quick Launch Toolbar, shown below. Of course, there are many other ways to use these shortcuts, such as pin to Start and Taskbar.



And now I think I see that what you're trying to do with "Open File Location" is to delete shortcuts to apps that reside in the "All Apps" listing. Thing is, I'm still not at all sure that one would want to "edit" (read delete) those shortcuts because once they're gone it seems to me that you may not be able to open the app again (should you want or need it), since it's shortcut(s) are gone.

Edit On: If the shortcuts can actually be deleted, and you wanted to open the app later, you would have to follow the procedure explained below in order to open an app. Or, are these shortcuts possibly the ones that won't stay gone? There's a lot I'm not understanding, but dare not try at this point in time. Edit off.

And now I've ventured off into somewhat new territory. Since I use Microsoft Office 365, I went to C:\Programs\Office (simplified) and started looking for my apps, which I found and which I had to do prior to Windows 8 if I wanted to create a shortcut on my Quick Launch. Once I find the app (Word, say), I right click and drag it to Quick Launch, where it asks if I want to "create a shortcut here" and I say yes (again simplified). In windows 10, the process has been simplified: Click and drag the shortcut to Quick Launch and drop it! Nice!

What's the advantage of Quick Launch? Simple! I no longer have to deal with the "All Apps" listing unless I want to pin something else to Quick Launch or need to open an app I rarely use. All the apps I use on a daily basis are now only one click away. :)

This is as clean as I can make both menus:



Can't hide, cut, remove or uninstall anything else!

Edwin said:

This is as clean as I can make both menus:



Can't hide, cut, remove or uninstall anything else!

Edwin, did you delete any of the shortcuts in "Open File Location"?

No, for now I just 'hid' them all.
Still trying to figure out what works and what doesn't.

It's all a little 'twisted' but here's what I've found so far, (and it may mess up some things!):

- the modern container apps, (default ones), that you can't uninstall, you can't do anything about them.
- the immersive system apps, you can't do much with them either, and if you do, it starts to mess things up.
- the Documents and Pictures shortcuts, (1), you can delete if you wish.
- user installed program folders, (2), you can hide or cut and move them somewhere else.
- Windows System folders, (3), you can't move but you can hide them.

Edwin... if you create a new folder does it show in your actual "all apps" menu?

Drybonz said:

Edwin... if you create a new folder does it show in your actual "all apps" menu?

Nope!

Edwin said:

Nope!

Ok... same here. I guess the folder where the actual changes take place is somewhere else. I poked around a bit but couldn't find it. There's one in your user profile... I think it was appdata>roaming>microsoft>windows>start menu, but this isn't the right one. Not really sure what that one is for.